


Talk Tonight

by ALovelyLitwit



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Becho with background Bellarke, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-13 19:05:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11191470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALovelyLitwit/pseuds/ALovelyLitwit
Summary: A series of nighttime conversations between Bellamy and Echo as the space squad passes the years after Praimfaya.





	1. Echo

**Author's Note:**

> This series will eventually lead to a Becho romantic relationship. Bellarke will be in the background as I think that Bellarke is endgame. But I also think both Bellamy and Echo have a lot to explore about themselves over the six years in space. Echo is a character I want to develop and she's the perfect POV character having been an Azgedian spy.

It’s freezing up here. Colder than the ground and the ground could get really fucking cold. In space, there’s no trees, no plants, no moss, no dirt. Just hard edges and sharp metal. Raven’s working on the heating system, but she’s not optimistic. We’ve been here a month and everything feels dire. My muscles are stiff and my bones feel frozen in a way the warmth of the ground would never have allowed. I have to take deep breaths to keep from crying. We escaped to the sky to flee the fire. But what if the cold is what kills us? That’s the justice of irony, I suppose.

I haven’t figured out how to be Echo here. Maybe I never will. Bellamy gave me a list of things to search the Ring for - supplies and tools and such. More than half the list makes no sense to me. I should have asked for help, but I couldn’t bring myself to. I’m useless enough as it is. The disappointment in Roan’s eyes still haunts my nightmares. I can’t face the same look from Bellamy. He feels like all I have now. And I don’t even have him. He hates me. I try to hate him. It doesn’t work and I’m so tired.

He is too. He tries to hide his exhaustion – tries to keep his shoulders raised and eyes focused. Like a good soldier. I would know. But the tension is there. His forehead creases from what I can imagine are constant headaches. And his eyes are focused on something in the distance no one else can see. Maybe he can’t either. I thought he’d miss Octavia the most, but it’s Clarke he can’t let go of. I’m surprised by that – how deeply he misses her. It’s different than the girl in Mount Weather – the one I helped kill. I’d call it love if I knew anything about that.

Love. Love is the thing keeping the others warm in this icy ass tin can. Monty and Harper. Murphy and Emori. Shacked up together and surviving for each other. No clan disputes, no conclaves, no wars to burn all that love to the ground. Just the brutality of space and resource deprivation. And the threat that the Ring’s chill will slowly creep into their blood and spread to their hearts and destroy whatever love they try to cling to in these harsh, confined quarters. All this love is new, so new. I want to call it weakness, but I know better. Love is what keeps Bellamy upright.

There is no love here for me.

And then there’s Raven. Next to Bellamy, it’s her I respect the most. She’s smart and strong - a true survivor. She’s the reason we are alive and the only way we’ll stay alive. The only way we’ll get back to the ground. And knowing how special she is keeps her warm. When she’s in the middle of solving some impossible problem, her cheeks flush and her brow sweats and she smiles. I’m most jealous of Raven. Her purpose is clear and true. She’s her own reason for waking up in the morning.

At night, I go to my room which is really just a tiny metal box. But at least there’s a blanket and a sky window. I can see the stars and wonder what’d it be like to reach up and grab one. Maybe take a bite and let all that light warm me like I so desperately crave. Nurture that tiny fire deep inside me so that I can keep going until my feet touch the ground again. Five years into some unimaginable future. I never sleep for long. The nightmares won’t let me. Instead, I explore the ship like any good spy would. Sometimes Bellamy is out roaming too. We have strange conversations.

‘It’s late, Echo.’ He always says this like it means something.

‘Can’t sleep.’ I glance at him but only briefly. And he stands beside me as we look down on the planet that burns all day and all night. Both of us shivering slightly. 

He sighs and asks some ridiculous question. ‘Does 'Echo' mean anything?’

I don’t want to answer his questions. I don’t want to say this much - for him to know this much. But I’m so cold and the promise of some little spark of warmth beckons. ‘As a child, I followed my brothers around repeating everything they said and did. Bryn starting calling me his ‘echo’. It stuck.’ 

‘You have family on the ground?’ He sounds shocked. Of course he does. He thinks I don’t know what it’s like to care. He thinks the concept of family is beyond me. He thinks I’m all blind loyalty and bitter betrayal.

‘Had. Gone long before Praimfaya.’ My chest starts to ache and I’ve said too much. This is always when I flee back to my empty bed. 

Sometimes he tries to stop me by saying my name. ‘Echo, stop. Echo, wait.’ Soft and firm all at once. Other times he lets me go in silence. But one night he reaches out a hand and touches my elbow with just his fingertips. I almost hiss at the way my skin ignites. It feels like what I imagine the stars taste like. And with one stupid touch, the burn of anger returns to flare in my eyes and he drops his hand, frowning. I turn before he can say anything else and disappear. Back in my room, I cry myself to sleep.

The next morning I wake up. The air is still cold. The ship still hums. And my toes still try to curl around the soft, warm earth that isn’t there. 

And I can’t help but think maybe there is no Echo anymore. Maybe there never was.


	2. Radio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Echo and Bellamy are each plagued by nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nightmares discussed a pretty intense emotionally. Full disclosure.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as Litwitlady! I'd love to hear from you.

Another month passes and our days aren’t any easier. The algae farm hasn’t produced the way Monty had hoped. We’ve got three days of MRE rations left. And that’s only because we eat every 1.5 days and only half the portion we were originally allotted. The algae farm was supposed to be our savior four weeks ago. There’s no grub in space. Everyone is hungry. Tempers are high.

Monty and Harper spend all day in the lab doing whatever it is they do. Murphy offers to help and Monty throws something at his head. At least that’s what I think happened. All we heard was yelling and a loud bang. Bellamy frowns in the general direction of the noise, but soon refocuses on his task at hand. Trying desperately to get our radio working alongside Raven. The radiation likely won’t let that happen. But the desperation is clear in his voice. You can almost hear her name in his every breath. Clarke. Clarke. Clarke. His jaw clenches every time he speaks into the radio and gets static echoed back at him. It reminds me of my mother in the days after father was taken and slaughtered. 

These days I stay near Bellamy and wait for orders. I annoyed him at first - always there, always waiting. Needing something to do with my hands to keep myself from thinking too hard about things that needed too much hard thinking. I know he feels the weight of leaving Clarke behind when he looks at me. I feel it, too, even though I don’t tell him. Because of course it should have been her. I wanted to live. Yes. But not like this. To his credit, Bellamy always fights against that reaction. And the guilt of that feeling is what lets me stay by his side. It’s what keeps us moving forward. Hopefully, I can earn my place next to him. 

My current task is gathering all the fabric I can find and sewing new clothes for everyone. The needles we’ve made are too thick and the stitching comes out coarse, but it’s the best I can manage. No one complains. More layers means more warmth means less dire circumstances. ‘Better morale’ as Bellamy says one day in another rousing speech by our captain. That’s what I call him in my head - Captain. There are no kings in space. But Captain feels right. A Blake leading the sky and a Blake leading the ground. 

At night I help Raven build stuff. I’m only good at holding heavy things in place so far, but I’m watching and memorizing everything she says and does. When I try to sleep at night, I repeat everything I’ve learned back in my head over and over again like a mantra. In the mornings, I ask questions which she answers sometimes. I want to help fix the radio. For Bellamy. For Octavia. For Clarke if she’s down there somewhere. These are my people now. Even if I’m not theirs.

Nightmares still wake me. Sweating and breathing hard. And something still keeps Bellamy up at night as well. We continue to run into each other. Tonight I find him sitting with the dead radio. His hair is all over the place, grown so long now. He’s wrapped in a blanket I made out of pillow fluff and bed sheets. The image is almost funny if you don’t notice the dark circles under his eyes or the slump in his shoulders. Or the ache in his heart. I stay at the door wondering if he’s noticed me. But he always does. Glancing up, he motions for me to come in and I do.

‘Raven’s going to try something different with the wires in the morning. It came to her while we were working on the oxygenator tonight.’ I have nothing to offer him but hope. And sometimes hope feels cruel.

‘It might not ever work. We need to accept that.’ I know he means himself when he says  
‘we’. 

He leans back in his chair and sighs. ‘Nightmares again?’

His words yank me out of my thoughts. ‘I don’t have nightmares.’ 

‘Then you just enjoy shouting in your sleep? Keeping your across the hall neighbor awake at all hours of the night?’ He smirks at me and I snarl back at him.

‘I tried to sleep apart from everyone. It was your bright idea to keep me close. Something about trust issues. Is that why you stay awake all night? Worried about me slitting your throat in the wee morning hours?’ I grab the sharpest object within sight. ‘I don’t need you to be asleep for that, Bellamy.’

He gets up and moves towards me not stopping until the pair of pliers I’m wielding thud against his chest. ‘What do you dream about, Echo?’

It’s an absurd question. And he’s too close. I put the pliers down and back away, refusing to answer. 

He leans against the table casually, crossing his arms and wrapping the blanket tighter around himself. ‘I dream about my mother. Do you ever dream about yours?’

A game of show and tell. I’m not interested. 

‘I dream that I’m here on the Ring awake at night. And I’m standing at the window looking down as Earth burns. Wondering about Octavia and everyone in the bunker. Wondering about Clarke’s final seconds. When out of the corner of my eye, I spot movement. A body floats in space. A body blue and pale and frozen. My mother’s body. Floated in space by a man and a society that I once despised. Maybe I still do. In that dream is everything I’ve lost.’ His voice cracks and I can’t meet his eye.

But I can answer his question. I can give him that.

‘I dream about your sister. I dream about the day I stabbed her through her gut. I dream about the look on her face when she knew she would die. I dream about watching her fall off an impossible cliff into a frigid river. And behind me, they’re all there. All the blood I’ve spilled. Every human life I’ve taken. One by one, they follow Octavia off the cliff. Turning to me first and forcing me to look them in the eyes one last time. I don’t know all their names. Hell, I don’t even know most of their names. And then finally, it’s my mother, my father, and my two brothers.’ Tears are streaming down my face. My voice is barely a whisper. ‘As they lean into the wind to begin their fall, they reach out for me, but I can never get to them in time. No matter how fast I move.’ 

Silence. One beat. Two beats. And then he moves towards me. I flinch and reach for the pliers again out of instinct. He pauses. I’ve stopped crying, but now I’m sweating. Panting. Gripping the cool metal of the pliers so tightly I think they might break. He slowly places his hand on mine and waits for me to release the weapon. I close my eyes and try to calm my breathing. Eventually, I ease my death grip and give him the pliers. We stand there not looking at each for a long time. Until he turns back towards the table and gestures to the radio. ‘Show me those wires Raven was talking about.’ 

And I do.


End file.
